The Vortex: Prophesies

Chapter Eight

Everyone goes through rough patches during their school life, when I was still in normal school last year, I thought the most difficult thing in the world was getting to school without Grandmother chastising me. Then while at school, making sure Percy didn't have a magic flare up, and Liylah didn't yank anyone's hair out for calling us freaks.

I did my best to take on Grandmother's advice and not get wrapped up in the silly little things people say, for such a grumpy old lady she gave some good advice sometimes. After so long of having so many people telling me such different things, sometimes it feels like all I am is a mix of everyone else's perceptions, Mum says that it comes with growing up.

Not that I thought growing up would be this hard, or chaotic, not only am I stuck working hard at school but now we are dealing with bullies that think violence is fun. How am I supposed to keep up with that, sometimes sixteen makes me feel older than anyone can understand and also like a newborn baby deer, trying to stand for the first time.

Now the place with maybe the most traumatic history I have ever heard but has been branded as a new place with better security than it ever had before has been vandalised.

It's the look on Jamie's face that had my stomach dropping, not because the two letters had been carved into the old wood door, but because you can spend thirty years repairing a bad reputation. Can spend the last twenty trying to protect this place more because of the last attack, you can assure everyone that nothing will ever happen again, the society is gone, but are they?

If the small amount of information we get given is true, then why would anyone let their guards down long enough to think they wouldn't come back.

"Are you good?" Jamie asks, making me jump as he makes his way down the steps and into our secret library. My head has been buried in the books we pulled from the tops of the shelves, looking for some kind of spell to eliminate the dark scars that Liylah has been left with.

There's a couple rituals that would be a little extreme for the kind of wounds we are dealing with, but the contents of it calls to me in a new way. Not that I can tell anyone this, some of these books are dark in their eyes, and I don't want to cause more issues at a time like this, some people are hovering over denial and I am sat straight in the worst conclusions.

"Twenty years" I tell him, sliding a blank piece of paper in between the ritual pages before continuing to flip through the pages, hoping something catches my eye.

"What?" He asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as his blue eyes follow my finger along the pages.

"They come back every twenty years" I repeat, finally voicing what has been rolling around my mind all day. "1958, 1979 and now 1996. There's around twenty years between each time they attack"

"So, you think everyone should have just expected it?" He scoffs, and his dismissal burns, because he is normally on my side, at least giving me the opportunity to express how I have come to that conclusion.

"Of course not, why would I expect anyone to anticipate war or death?" I question, trying to meet his eyes but he refuses. "What is it?"

"To these... people my parents are war criminals, so are their friends so forgive me if I am not too keen on constantly assuming that my parents are going to be in danger all over again!"

"That's not-" He's gone from beside me and from the room in a flash, I sigh murmuring to myself. "- What I meant"

Desperate to escape the cold confines of our catacombs I do something I never thought I wound and rip the page of healing spells from the book and make my way upstairs and back into our room where I know Liylah is. Almost everyone else will be at lunch in the dining hall, after what happened with the door almost all of the progress Liylah had made was washed away.